Kook Hacker Fights Extradition With Kook Lawyers

A British Hacker, dope smoker, and conspiracy theorist who hacked into US military and scientific computers in a vain effort to locate evidence of UFO coverups is fighting extradition to the United States. To do this, he hired lawyers that are helping known terrorists that are held in Guantanimo Bay to fight his extradition based upon fears that he will be held without parole in Cuba and threatened with torture.

From Reuters here:

LONDON (Reuters) – A British computer enthusiast hacker accused by the U.S. government of the world’s “biggest military hack of all time” began a court fight against extradition to the United States on Tuesday.

Gary Mckinnon was arrested last June following charges by U.S. prosecutors that he illegally accessed 97 government computers — including Pentagon, U.S. army and navy and NASA systems.

Prosecutors say he hacked into sensitive networks over a one-year period from February 2002 and caused $700,000 worth of damage, after crippling U.S. defense systems in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

If found guilty, Mckinnon could face up to $1.75 million in fines and 60 years in jail.

Mckinnon’s lawyers say he might be prosecuted under military law if he were sent to the United States and could be subjected to “special administrative measures” such as solitary confinement and other tactics to persuade him to plead guilty.

He could even face the prospect of being sent to Guantanamo Bay with no chance of parole, they say.

Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in London is expected to hear from Clive Stafford-Smith, a human rights lawyer who acts on behalf of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Mckinnon — whose hacking name was Solo — admits gaining access to U.S. government computers but denies he caused any damage. His supporters say the U.S. government should be grateful to him for highlighting its security shortcomings.

U.S. prosecutors say there is no evidence Mckinnon downloaded classified information or forwarded files to foreign governments.

One of the allegations relates to McKinnon deleting files from computers at a U.S. naval station during a critical time following the September 11, attacks, rendering the base’s network of computers inoperable.

This article paints the hacker in the nicest of ways, letting the reader think that perhaps, the man is actually innocent. He’s not. He bragged about his exploits to a UK newspaper. He admitted his guilt. At the time that the article came out, another UK based security team analyzed the article in the newspaper in which McKinnon bragged about his elite skillz- that article is here:

It would seem Gary “Uber Hacker” McKinnon is not so “Uber” after all. After reading his interview on Spy.org.uk it has come to our attention that his technical knowledge and indeed, mental state, is not all that it should be.

But then again, if you are as high from smoking cannabis as Gary Mckinnon seems to delight in telling everyone he was when perpetrating the alleged US Military hacks, then there is really no telling what you’d do.

The interview is embarrassing for anyone remotely technically inclined to read more or less from the outset but becomes almost farcical toward the end:

Jon Ronson, the reporter for the Guardian asks “The Americans have a secret spaceship?”

“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.” Replies Mckinnon.

Despite all this forbidden knowledge Gary still does strenuously deny the US justice departments charge that he caused the “US military district of Washington” to become “inoperable”. Well, once, he admits, but only once, he inadvertently pressed the wrong button and may have deleted some government files.

“What did you do then?” asks Ronson.

“I thought, ‘Ooh, bloody hell’ ” Mckinnon says.

Way to go. Oh yes, be careful with the buttons. You never know what you’ll do; perhaps delete some important UFO files so you have absolutely no evidence of any of your unbelievable claims when you are inevitably caught and publicly convicted of military grade ‘hacking’ by a superpower you were, by your admitted actions alone, clearly trying to subvert by stealing secrets from; surely you’d keep evidence, surely that would be the point. No. Gary has forgotten all the details. Gary the ‘uber hacker’.

Aside from which it’s always a good idea to deny charges but then admit to them later in interviews, that s a sure fire way to help your case.

Gary was caught in November 2002. He says it was inevitable, in retrospect, because he was “getting a bit sloppy“. He pauses. “I’d never have envisaged this happening to myself, but I did get a bit megalomaniacal as well.

According to The Guardian’s interview government agencies found Gary in the end because he’d used his own email address to download a “hacking program” called Remotely Anywhere.

Remotely Anywhere is a remote system administration tool. Not a “hacking program”.

“God knows why I used my real email address,” McKinnon later says. “I suppose it means I’m not a secretive, sophisticated, checking-myself-every-step-of-the-way type of hacker.” Quite.

So the US government have caught the biggest hacker of all time?

Biggest, or stupidest?

The original Guardian Story is here, which details how McKinnon was a complete stoner loser. It contains nuggets like the following:

And so, for the next seven years, on and off, Gary sat in his girlfriend’s aunt’s house, a joint in the ashtray and a can of Foster’s next to the mouse pad, and he snooped. From time to time, some Nasa scientist sitting at his desk somewhere would see his cursor move for no apparent reason. On those occasions, Gary’s connection would be abruptly cut. This would never fail to freak out the then-stoned Gary.
“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.

“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”

“Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?”

“I guess so,” says Gary.

“What were the ship names?”

“I can’t remember,” says Gary. “I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect.”

He quit his job as a systems administrator for a small business, “which hugely pissed off my girlfriend Tamsin. It was the last straw. She dumped me and started seeing this other bloke because I was such a selfish waste of space. Poor Tamsin. And she was the one paying the phone bill because I didn’t have a job. We were still living together. God, have you ever tried living with someone after you’ve split up? It’s bad.”

So it seems that the US Government wants to bring this idiot to our shores to stand trial. If he is convicted, it will just pile on to what has already seemed like a pretty miserable life. It couldn’t happen to a better kook.